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NEWS
Cairns cops costly fuel rap
It's official! Cairns is not the ideal place to fuel upFilling up in Cairns on your ‘Big Lap’ adventure, or before heading north to the Tip, is a more costly exercise than at other tourist regions around Australia, Australia’s consumer watchdog has discovered.
The average net profit per petrol station in Cairns was around 38 per cent higher than the average net profit across other sites around Australia in 2015–16, according to a new petrol market study published by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
“The ACCC’s Cairns petrol market report confirms what motorists have suspected for a long time: they are paying too much for fuel and contributing to very high profits for retailers in the area,” ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said.
“Competition in the Cairns fuel market is weak and unfortunately it is consumers who are paying for this at the bowser. While weak competition sees higher prices for consumers, of itself this does not reflect any breach of competition or consumer laws.”
The report found since 2012–13, petrol prices in Cairns have been significantly higher than those in the five largest cities in Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth).
Between 2012–13 and the first half of 2016–17, motorists in Cairns paid on average around 11 cents per litre more for petrol than motorists in the major capitals.
Sims blamed the steep prices in Cairns on “higher retail profit margins on petrol, higher wholesale prices, and higher retail operating costs per litre.
The report also pointed out that smaller towns like Innisfail, located around 100km from Cairns, have generally offered cheaper fuel prices than Cairns.
“This is significant given that Cairns is around 20 times the size of Innisfail. Other towns in North Queensland such as Mareeba, Atherton, and Ayr have also had lower petrol prices than Cairns in recent years,” he said.
For the period 2014-15 the price of diesel in Cairns was also calculated at 7.1 cents per litres higher than in Brisbane and on average, 2.8 cents per litre higher than Innisfail.
In 2015-16, compared to the five biggest cities in Australia, diesel was on average 8.2 cents per litre more expensive in Cairns.
The ACCC is also set to release a report on Brisbane fuel prices, which it has also found in the past to be “very high”.
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Written byGeoff Middleton
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